According to the latest research, it might just be possible to combat acrophobia with the assistance of a VR therapy. The findings of the research have apparently been very optimistic, lending hope to experts that virtual reality could, indeed, play an integral role in tackling not just acrophobia but also other kinds of mental health issues.
A survey conducted in 2014 by YouGov revealed that in the UK, acrophobia is more common than a phobia of snakes, spiders, air travels, etc. According to statistics, 23% of Brits are “very afraid” of heights while 35% is “a little afraid.”
Daniel Freeman, co-founder of Oxford VR (the company behind the research), first author of the research and a professor of clinical psychology at the University of Oxford said, “It is just the most common type of phobia and one we know a lot of people do not get treatment for despite it impinging on many people’s lives quite a lot. What is hugely encouraging here is just the size of the treatment effects; it is really very large.”
Freeman and his colleagues did an interesting study where they invited a hundred adults with acrophobia and divided them into two random groups. After that, they invited around half of them to use the VR headset for a period of thirty minutes. This was repeated for a fortnight for almost two to three times every week. On the other hand, the second group was not exposed to any kind of VR headsets.
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A total of 47 people from the treatment group took at least one of the sessions with VR headsets. On an average, they completed almost 4.5 sessions in total. The people who were exposed to the VR therapy sessions had access to an avatar coach that did an assessment and then invited them to choose one of the floors on a virtual building and then asked them to perform certain activities like rescuing a puppy or a cat from a tree, etc. These activities helped them explore their fears and thoughts behind them.
Furthermore, a set of questions in a questionnaire were given to these individuals in order to carry out an assessment of their fear of heights. A similar questionnaire was, then, given to them after two weeks and then after the end of four weeks.
The surprising results showed immense improvement in the phobia that the people experienced, and it was self-reported that their fear had fallen by at least 68% on an average. On the contrary, the individuals who did not receive any treatment did not show any changes or showed only little changes in their fear of heights.
According to Freeman’s comments on the efficacy of this therapy, “It is better than what you would expect if you saw a therapist face to face,” Freeman said of the results. “We didn’t do a direct comparison, but if you look at the other treatment trials the results are a lot better.“